Sebastian Joseph Hernandez looks through papers at his Stillwater home in Sept. 2018. The 88-year old longtime St. Paul educator and social justice advocate suffered a life-threatening stroke Aug. 25, 2018. He remains in hospice care at his Stillwater home. (Rubén Rosario / Pioneer Press)

If there are thoughts and prayers for the dying, there should also be eulogies for the living.

So when I heard that 88-year-old Sebastian Joseph “Sam” Hernandez — child migrant worker, Air Force veteran, jazz band musician, Macalester College grad, St. Paul assistant school principal, social worker and pioneering civil rights educator in the Twin Cities — was in hospice care after a recent devastating stroke, I figured he might be worthy of a toast before the final roast. Others thought so, too.

“Sam is one of the few truly colorblind individuals I have ever met in my lifetime — and I am not talking about paint colors,” said Yusef Mgeni, a longtime friend, educator, activist and former first Vice President of St. Paul NAACP. “He is a one-in-a-million guy who radiates credibility, has an addictive smile and is constantly involved in 101 different projects.”

Added Daniel Rodriguez, executive director of Merrick Community Services on St. Paul’s East Side:

“He’s forgotten more about the importance of culture and diversity and Mexican history than most people will ever know. He has this commitment to equity that also includes gender and anyone who might be different from someone else. He has a strong moral compass about right and wrong.”

A handwritten sign taped to the front door of the Hernandez residence in rural Stillwater informs visitors of the serious aftermath of the Aug. 25th cerebral stroke: “Please limit visitors at a time to 1-2 people and visits to only 15-20 minutes if sleepy …”

I found Hernandez seated at a table waiting for me, wearing a gray cap with a P-38 Lockheed Lighting fighter plane patch sewn to it. He could barely utter a word right after the stroke. A few days ago, though he was difficult to understand at times, we chatted for nearly an hour about his life and views.

He was born in a boxcar in Fort Dodge, Iowa, in 1930 to Vicente Hernandez and Madelena Medina Hernandez.

As a child, Hernandez and kin picked or tended cotton, fruits, flowers, vegetables, potatoes, sugar beets, grapes, berries along a seasonal route from Texas to California, up the coast to Oregon and Washington, then east to Idaho, the Dakotas, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Michigan, then back to Texas.

“Sometimes, we would get paid with one or two tomatoes,” he recalled during our chat.

In order to make a few bucks on the side at weddings, birthdays and other migrant-family occasions, the family formed a musical band. Little Sam learned to play the violin, string bass and mandolin. He later learned to play the tuba, baritone, trombone and percussion.

At the age of 9, he accompanied his guitar-playing brother to Minneapolis and competed in a radio program called “Stairway to the Stars,” headed by Cedric Adams at WCCO.

“We won an award for our performance,” he notes in a short autobiography.

Hernandez answered the call in response to a severe shortage of semi-truck drivers in 1944-46 as a result of men drafted into military service. He drove the truck all over Midwestern states for various farms. He was 14 when he began trucking.

“Not exactly legal or proper, but war brings about innovation,” he noted.

Sebastian Joseph “Sam” Hernandez during his Air Force days. (Courtesy of Peggy Hernandez)

The family ultimately settled in Delavan, a small town in southern Minnesota where he graduated from high school. A year later, he enlisted in the Air Force and served four years during the Korean War conflict.

He joined the local musician union upon his relocation to the Twin Cities and played trombone for visiting jazz cornet player Doc Evans and local artists such as Jose Cortez and the Nick Castillo band.

Along with an older brother, he moved to Tallahassee, Fla., and enrolled in Florida State University under the GI bill.

He graduated in 1959. Along with a second brother, the three siblings formed the Starlighters, a jazz combo, and subbed regularly with bands backing Ray Conniff, Stan Kenton and Dixieland jazz type groups.

He returned to the Twin Cities, enrolled at Macalester College, graduated with a master’s degree in education and pursued a doctorate in secondary school administration.

He began teaching with Spanish and history in St. Paul schools from 1961 through 1970. It was not surprising at all that he embraced the civil rights, human rights and cultural diversity movements that surfaced during this time.

He helped spearhead a public awareness and fundraising program at Harding High School and throughout the St. Paul district that helped send local students on student exchange programs throughout the world.

In 1968, he was honored as Teacher of Excellence and a finalist for Teacher of the Year.

He played a major role in a bill passed that required state teachers to take 60 hours of diversity and multicultural training in order to be licensed.

Though he retired from teaching in 1995, he later worked as an adjunct professor at Hamline University until 2001.

“He was the most organized instructor I ever met,” recalled Tim Klein, a former student during Hernandez’s Hamline days, who later became a fellow St. Paul teacher.

Klein recalls the stunned and puzzled looks on the faces of Hazel Park junior high students one day when both he and Hernandez found themselves about to teach in the same classroom.

Sebastian Joseph Hernandez played a major role in a bill passed that required state teachers to take 60 hours of diversity and multicultural training in order to be licensed. (Courtesy of Peggy Hernandez)

Hernandez, who also served as a multicultural consultant for major Twin Cities corporations, was working on a documentary about migrants in America and other projects when he was felled by the stroke. Doctors told his wife, Peggy, that things did not look good. They advised keeping him in a hospital setting for the remaining days. Sam wanted to go home. It’s been two weeks now.

“He has fought a long fight for equality and cultural understanding in education and employment, and he will not give up this fight easily,” she shared in an email a day before my visit. “I believe he’s going to be around for a while longer.”

The couple raised two adopted children, both now adults. Hernandez has a daughter from a previous marriage.

Don’t ask him what he thinks about negative portrayals of migrants and immigrants in recent years. Well, do ask him because, though frail, he perks up and gives you a “let’s cut the BS” look, followed by a few choice words about bigots and fear-mongering politicians.

That’s why, though facing a dire prognosis, he is adamant he wants to hang around until he finishes his migrant project, among others.

“I’m still here so I want to finish it,” he told me as he stood up, smiled, shook my hand, and began heading for the makeshift first-level bedroom with the aid of a walker. “Thanks for coming.”

From smoking crack in a Harlem drug den for a front-page exposé to covering the deaths of 86 people in a Bronx social club fire, Rubén Rosario spent 11 years as a writer for the New York Daily News before joining the Pioneer Press in 1991 as special correspondent and city editor. He launched his award-winning column in 1997. He is by far the loudest writer in the newsroom over the phone.

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